


what is[n't] seen

by hopelegacy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, also so patient and kind, bamf jeno, jaemin makes everyone gay panic, jeno pov, renjun is pretty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelegacy/pseuds/hopelegacy
Summary: Night terrors chase Jeno wherever he goes, plagued by them his whole life but unsure why. When one of his dreams nearly comes true in front of his eyes, he's confronted with finding his place in a world he never thought he'd belong to.(alternatively: jeno can see the future but still doesn't know how to talk to the boys he likes)
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	1. dark, light, flame

**Author's Note:**

> hellloooo! so this is a repost of something i posted earlier this year, now that my semester of college is almost over AND i will have nothing to do otherwise, i feel mildly more confident in my ability to write this and post chapters in a somewhat timely manner.
> 
> (also i'm not sure what makes me use some people's stage names and other people's real names, sorry that it's so inconsistent lol)
> 
> if you enjoy, feel free to leave kudos/comments! here we go:

Jeno gasps for breath as he pushes frantically past people on the streets, lungs burning in his chest and feet aching with every pound against the cold concrete underneath him. It’s late into the night, but New York’s night life is lively as ever; people shout as he shoves them aside, but Jeno ignores them and desperately keeps moving. _Get away. Don’t stop. Never stop._

He risks a glance behind him to find that the figure has gotten closer, swathed in darkness. Despite the breakneck pace at which Jeno is running, its pace seems leisurely, like he’s amused by Jeno’s panic. Jeno desperately tries to pick up his speed, ignoring the burning of his muscles and the pounding of his heart. He diverts right, trying to lose the figure, but stops dead at the broken glass he sees scattered around the middle of the filthy alleyway. Jeno’s feet are bare--he can’t possibly make it over.

He heaves heavy and loud breaths as he glances behind him to see that the dark figure has already turned into the alley--with every second Jeno is stopped, it gets closer. Fear claws at his mind as he tries to decide what to do, crawling over his skin and making him shudder. He wants to throw up. 

It’s getting too close.

Jeno runs. He screams in horror and pain as he feels glass sink deeper into his skin with every step, and he’s _almost there, he’s almost to the opening of the alley--_

A cold, strong grip seizes his arm and wrenches him backwards. Jeno lands hard on his back, head knocking against the concrete. He screams and holds his arms above his head, trying hopelessly to prepare for what’s to come.

***

Jeno jolts awake in his own bed, soaked in his own sweat and heart racing fast and loud enough for him to hear blood rush through his own ears. He twists in his sheets and clutches at the fabric of his pillow, trying his best to take deep breaths.

Some part of him hopes as he does this that he hadn’t made any noise tonight during his nightmare. His roommates know that he sometimes gets nightmares, but he never tells them about their contents--how they leave him terrified, constantly looking over his shoulder.

It seems, tonight, that he’s unlucky. His door creaks open as Jeno still tries to catch his breath--he probably looks a wreck, drenched in sweat, flushed, chest heaving. He looks up to see Mark poking his head inside, fingers wrapped around the doorframe.

“Jeno?” Mark pushes further inside, sitting down next to Jeno and resting a hand on his shoulder. “You alright?”

The obvious answer is no, but Jeno still appreciates the sentiment.

“Yeah,” he lies. “I’ll be fine, just a dream.”

Mark squeezes his shoulder before getting up to go to the bathroom. Jeno twists back around in his sheets as he waits, pulling himself up to rest his back against the headboard. His heart isn’t racing quite as quickly anymore, but he still feels like shit--sweaty and achy and trembling from the leftover fear. He can still feel the way the glass dug into his bare feet, the cold hand wrenching him backwards onto the--

“Here,” Mark says, just in time to stop Jeno from spiraling back into his own nightmare. He has two washcloths in hand, dampened by cold water. He hands one to Jeno to press against his face as Mark drapes one around Jeno’s neck himself.

Fuck, it helps more than he wants to admit. The cold against his face and neck distract him from his fear and feel heavenly against his clammy skin.

“Hyuck’s still out,” Mark tells him. “Do you want me to call one of your brothers?”

Jeno glances to his right at his nightstand, where large numbers telling the time glow dark and radiant. 2:39. A brief spike of terror shoots down his spine imagining Donghyuck outside at night, just as late as it had been in his dream. He knows, though, that he was just at his computer science partner’s place trying to finish a project. Hyuck probably just decided to sleep over.

Taking a deep breath, Jeno says, “No, it’s fine. They’ll be asleep by now.”

“They wouldn’t mind,” Mark reminds him.

Yeah, Jeno knows. Doyoung and Gongmyung are the most supportive older brothers he could possibly have asked for. It doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t feel bad for waking them up so late, especially with how stressed Doyoung’s been lately.

“It’s okay, really,” Jeno says. “Just give me a few minutes, I’ll be fine.”

Mark nods, awkwardly hovering next to him. Jeno loves Mark to death, and he’s more comforting than he realizes, but Mark often feels too insecure when it comes to showing affection for his friends.

“Want to watch some TV?” Mark suggests. “Could be a good distraction.”

Jeno scrubs the wet washcloth down his face one more time, enjoying the way it scrapes against his skin, leaving a wet sheen in its wake. He nods.

They both rise from Jeno’s bed, and as Mark goes to their tiny kitchen to pour them both glasses of water, Jeno pulls the damp sheets from his bed to throw in the washing machine. When he comes back, there are two glasses sitting on their coffee table and Mark is hunched over his phone texting, he assumes, Hyuck. His thumbs tap rapidly at the screen as Jeno approaches.

There’s a _whoosh_ as the text sends and Mark sets it down on the table, face-up, when he goes to pick up the remote. “What should we watch?” he asks as he presses the power button.

The screen illuminates and the 24-hour news channel pops up, some white man in his forties with a solemn face reporting on some convenience store shoplifting incident. When Mark manages to pull up Netflix, Jeno asks, “Why was it on the news channel?”

They never watched the news--rarely did anyone their age. When their TV opened to cable, it was always on some shitty channel that played a lot of reruns. Hyuck likes to watch procedural crime shows, a fact which gets him teased endlessly by Mark and Jeno. Sometimes, though, they end up getting sucked into whatever Hyuck is watching, and he holds it over them with no hesitation.

“There was a report earlier today about some person who accidentally killed all the plants in, like, a 40-foot radius. I was there when it happened, so I was curious what the news had to say about it.”

“You were _there_?” Jeno says incredulously. Witnessing supernatural events was rare--barely any people had “powers,” so to speak. Only sixteen people in all of history had ever been caught publicly using supernatural powers, and six of them were largely speculation. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “It was fucking wild. I was just walking back from work when all of the grass around me suddenly turned, like, black.”

Jeno would think it was scary, but he’d seen and felt much worse even in his own dreams. He grabs his water and rests on his thigh as he sat back against the couch, his neck cradled between two cushions. His hand wraps loosely around the cold glass to keep it from falling.

Mark turns on his own favorite show, as Jeno is indecisive. Mark tucks his legs underneath him, and they stay up for hours, ignoring the way Jeno’s fingers still tremble faintly.

***

They don’t go to sleep until nearly five in the morning. Jeno, unsurprisingly, sleeps in and walks into his 9AM fifteen minutes too late. His professor looks up as he walks in, pausing slightly in the middle of her lecture, before continuing as if nothing had happened. Jeno’s disappointed to find his usual seat is taken, so he sits a few rows farther back than usual.

Jaemin’s hair looks fluffier than usual today, perhaps even a little lighter in color. He watches as his long fingers wriggle, tapping the eraser of his pencil onto his notebook as he listens to the professor’s lecture. He’s wearing a pink sweater that reaches past his fingers on his left hand, and Jeno is so gay. He takes a second to be a little angry at whoever took his seat because he was late. It’s right behind Jaemin, because he’s pathetic and lovesick.

When the lecture is over and Jeno has taken the best notes he can on top of being distracted by looking at Jaemin and being dead tired, he apologizes to the professor before he signs the attendance sheet, thankful he made it in time to still be counted present.

“That’s alright, Jeno,” she says, guessing at how to pronounce his name--the E is long and Jeno is amused hearing it. The professor must have noticed. “I’ve only ever read your name on paper, how do you say it?”

“Je-no,” Jeno says, finishing up his signature. The TA snatches up the attendance sheet and rushes out the door the moment he’s finished.

“Je-no,” his professor repeats. “You doing okay?”

She’s probably the most empathetic professor he has this semester, and it makes a part of him reluctant to lie to her. But it would be weird to spill all of his problems to his professor he’s barely spoken to. “I’m fine,” he ends up telling her. “I just missed my alarm this morning.”

He’s sure something in his face gives him away, because she looks disbelieving as she says, “Okay, have a nice day.”

“Thank you, you too,” he says.

He still has two whole hours until his next class starts, so he has every intention of going back to his shared apartment for at least another hour of sleep. But as he turns to his left once he leaves the classroom, he’s surprised to almost run straight into Jaemin, who’s standing a couple of feet from the wall scrolling idly on his phone.

Jeno gasps out loud and stops just in time to run chest-first into Jaemin’s face, but unfortunately Jaemin turns his face just when Jeno is still regaining his own balance. They’re nearly the exact same height, and their faces, for a mere second, are uncomfortably close together. They both take a step back at the same time.

“Shit,” he says, and he did _not_ want that to be the first thing he ever said to Jaemin Na. “Sorry!”

Jaemin, from the front, looks a little weary himself, but he still smiles with barely any teeth and reassures Jeno with an “it’s okay” while waving his free hand dismissively. His eyes are squinty, like he’s too tired to keep them open. Jeno deeply relates.

“Um,” he says, aloud, like an idiot. But they’re both just standing there, staring. Jeno probably should have walked away the second he regained his balance, but he was too caught up in _looking_.

Jaemin laughs awkwardly, and thankfully Jeno catches sight of Donghyuck standing at the other side of the hallway. Less thankfully, Donghyuck looks like he’s ready to burst out laughing at Jeno.

“Uh, that’s--” Jeno says, pointing to Donghyuck. Jaemin turns his head to look where he’s pointing as Jeno manages, “I gotta go.”

Jaemin presses his lips together in a smile that looks a little indulging. “See you Thursday?”

“Yeah!” Jeno says, louder than intended. “Yeah, see you Thursday.”

Jeno hoists his backpack farther up his shoulder as he hurries away, cringing internally both at the disaster of a first meeting and at the look on Hyuck’s face.

“That was the gayest shit I’ve ever seen,” Hyuck says, in a perfectly loud and clear voice that he’s _sure_ Jaemin can hear from across the hallway.

Jeno widens his eyes and whips around to look back at Jaemin, who’s laughing to himself as he looks back down at his phone. The moment he and Hyuck round the corner out of Jaemin’s sight, Jeno lets his face crumble into one of despair as he wriggles petulantly. “That was _terrible_!”

Hyuck tries to pat him on his back in commiseration, but instead slaps his backpack with enough force a few times for Jeno to feel it through all of his journals. As they step outside and the chilly October breeze hits him, Jeno regrets not bringing a better jacket.

“Mark said you had a rough night,” Hyuck says, voice just a little halting. “You feeling better today?”

“I’m good now, just need some more sleep,” he says. “You going back home now?”

Hyuck sighs. “I wish. My partner in computer science is stressed about our project. He’s just taking the class as an elective credit, so he doesn’t really understand what’s going on--more of an art person. He’s actually coming over to our apartment tonight, if that’s okay?”

Jeno huffs in amusement. “You know you don’t need to ask,” he tells Hyuck.

“Yeah, I know,” Hyuck says. “Thought I’d make sure anyways, especially since your nightmares have been getting worse.”

Pursing his lips, Jeno sighs through his nose, suddenly feeling tired all over again.

These rarely used to happen--maybe every few months, and one of his brothers would have to talk him down. Now, though, they’re happening at least once a week, and it’s starting to take a toll on him, his schoolwork, his job, and unfortunately his roommates.

“Sorry,” Jeno says. Before Hyuck can tell him not to be sorry, he says, “It’s fine if your partner comes over, after how little sleep I got last night I think I’ll sleep like a rock, anyways.”

Hyuck nods. “Okay. I’ll see you after class?”

“Yeah,” Jeno says as he starts to back away. “See you then.”

He turns, looking forward more than ever to lying face-down in his bed the moment he gets home.

***

He doesn’t end up sleeping an hour before his next class, rather fifteen minutes before he jolts awake, realizing he has an online assignment to do before class that he forgot to write down in his planner last week. He’s grateful to his brain for remembering before he got to class and beat himself up for not doing it, but another part of him just wants to lie his head back down on his pillow and pass out.

As he opens up the browser on his loud, shitty HP laptop, suggested articles come up underneath the search engine. An article catches his eye, one that’s clearly about the incident Mark told him about the night before. He clicks into the article--titled _Unknown Person Kills Every Plant in Vicinity Near College Campus_ \--and the first thing to load is a landscape-style photo of the scenery after the incident. Mark was right--the grass _was_ nearly black, and the trees were wilting, its leaves scattered all over the grass. Weeds lie flat over the grass, lifeless. It’s almost a gruesome sight.

He scrolls further into the article, finding that it was presumably a college student but not much more was known. There were plenty of witnesses, but nobody could identify who specifically did the damage--apparently, everyone there looked completely normal, and just as startled as the next person.

Jeno presumes whoever done it had tried to act as normal as possible after, trying not to get caught. He understands--if he were in their place, he wouldn’t want anyone knowing he had powers, either. The government was scared of them, and once the public found out there was no going back. Jeno thinks about how scared they must have been, and feels bad for them. Hopefully they’re okay now, and safely out from under suspicion.

He clicks the article closed and navigates over to his class portal, rubbing the fatigue from his eyes. He sighs as his assignment opens, fifteen multiple choice questions, one chance to get them all right. Usually, this is the easiest part of the week for this class, but for now the task feels impossible. 

Sighing, Jeno clicks the answer to the first question. His professor won’t take chronic sleep deprivation as an excuse for sloppy work.

***

He got eleven out of fifteen, which was acceptable enough for the state he was in. He was too tired to look up the answers. He just wanted to get the day over with so he could (hopefully) get a whole night of sleep.

As he’s on his way home from class, though--thankfully his last class on Tuesdays--he watches as a girl with blonde hair scrolls through social media, waiting for the crosswalk sign to signal to her that she can cross the street. Everything about it seems eerily too familiar to him--her black sweatshirt and sweatpants, hair tied back into a ponytail that’s halfway to sliding out of her thin hair. The sandals that are a little out of place with the rest of her outfit, not fit for the cold weather.

The signal turns to the man walking, and she glances up as she begins to cross the street. And suddenly, with a cold strike of terror, Jeno remembers where he’s seen this before.

Weeks ago, he’d woken up in a cold sweat after watching a girl his age bleed out on the street, blonde hair stained crimson.

Immediately, he drops his backpack on the sidewalk, and it hits the floor with a sound louder than the weight of his backpack would normally yield. He pays no attention to the strange looks he gets from the people surrounding him, and he fucking _sprints_.

His feet hit the ground with what feels like enough force to crack the pavement underneath him as he sprints toward the girl. He swears to god he’s never run this fast in his life.

A truck hurtles toward her, much faster than the campus speed limit of 15 miles per hour.

Jeno slams into her with the force of his entire body plus the speed at which he was running. He wraps his arms around her, still moving forward, and turns them around to break their inevitable fall. The truck rushes past them, and he swears he fucking _feels_ the wind as it passes, so fucking close to them, holy shit--

His head cracks against the pavement as they finally hit the ground. Pain immediately radiates from the back of his head, fear pumping through his heart. The girl is face-up on top of him, shaking, breathing rapid.

They stay like that for a few seconds, completely unable to move. The pain in Jeno’s head worsens by the second. Finally, he hears people running towards them, and the girl on top of him finally gets up and turns to look at him, still shaken.

“Holy fuck,” she says, her voice trembling. “Holy fuck, are you okay?” 

Jeno doesn’t want to move his head, but he still feels too terrified to speak.

“Holy fuck,” she says again. Someone in their vicinity is shouting _Call an ambulance!_ and the girl looks up, startled. “Holy fuck, your head. Oh my god. Fuck.”

Jeno’s breathing is as rapid and terrified as her own. She takes out her own phone, and Jeno notices that her arms are scraped up. They must’ve hit the ground hard during their fall. Just like Jeno’s fucking head, holy shit it hurts--

“Thank you,” she says as the phone rings next to her ear. “Fuck, thank you so much,” she repeats. Tears start to roll down her face, and her voice shakes as she answers the 911 call.

Jeno can’t stop fucking shaking. How could he possibly have dreamed that? Fuck, if he hadn’t had that dream, this girl--this girl sobbing, still nearly on top of him, voice stuttering as she speaks to the 911 operator--would be dead. She would be bleeding out in the street, and the truck would be gone, and she would have been fucking dead within minutes.

_How? How the fuck did he see this in a dream?_

The girl stays on the phone with 911, but the conversation seems to be over, and she cries harder over his chest. “Thank you,” she says again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”

Before the ambulance arrives, Jeno manages clear his throat of enough panic, pain, and confusion to say, “Don’t thank me.”

She shakes her head. “I could have died.”

_I know_ , Jeno thinks. _I saw it._

“Just be careful,” Jeno says, and the bright lights and loud siren of the ambulance approach.

He zones out as they lift him onto a stretcher, and Jeno panics as he sees blood on the ground out of the corner of his eye from where they lifted him. It’s not a lot--in fact, it’s barely any. But fuck, it freaks him out.

The doors to the ambulance close, shutting out the chaos around it. It does nothing for the chaos in his head.


	2. not to terms

Jeno wakes up with a tight pressure around his head and his brother hovering over him, fumbling with the blankets lying over his lower body. He pulls it up abruptly at the edge, air rushing under it before gently settling back, revealing the shape of his legs again.

“Hyung,” Jeno says, croaky. Doyoung’s eyes snap over to his face, suddenly calmer than he clearly had been a second ago. “What’s going on?”

Doyoung’s hands disappear and then emerge out of nowhere with Jeno’s glasses. He perches them on Jeno’s face. “Do you remember what happened?”

Yeah, he does. Too clearly. If it weren’t the bandage around his head that sharply reminded him, it would be his sore leg muscles, or his aching feet, or his stinging arms. The pain in the back of his head is somehow dulled, though still more painful than the rest of his afflictions combined.

“Yeah,” Jeno says. He moves his head, eyes searching. God, his neck hurts, too. He wants to go back to sleep already.

“Gongmyung is on his way,” Doyoung tells him softly. Jeno feels his hand rest on his arm and stay there. Reluctantly, he moves his head again to look back at his brother. “It’s only been seven hours since you arrived at the hospital. Gongmyung-hyung only has an hour of his drive left until he’s here. Your friends came, too, but I told them to sleep at home and come back in the morning.”

Only seven hours. With the way his body felt, it felt like it had been longer. “Okay,” he says. He blinks rapidly, trying not to let the thought of everything that happened overwhelm him. “Thank you,” he says, doing his best to keep his voice normal.

Doyoung notices anyway. “Oh, Jeno. You—part of me wishes you hadn’t done this, so you wouldn’t be in pain. But.” Doyoung pauses for a while, squeezing Jeno’s arm. “It’s who you are.”

And Jeno thinks about the dream, how he wouldn’t have known to run to her otherwise. The thought is still too impossible to compute. The tears well up further in his eyes.

“How is she?” he asks. His throat is so closed up now that it comes out weak and teary. “Is she okay?”

“Her name is Sanja,” Doyoung tells him. “Her parents told me she only had a sore neck and a couple of scrapes.”

Jeno closes his eyes, and a tear tracks down his right temple, into his hair. He feels its tracks cool, and he croaks out, “I saw her.”

There’s a pause in the soft stroking Doyoung had been doing to his arm. “You saw what?”

Squeezing his eyes further shut, he feels the tears come in full force. The effort to hold them back causes pain to well up in his head and neck again, and he wants to cry even more. Fuck, he doesn’t know what’s going on. His eyes burn from the pressure and Doyoung’s hand tightens again. He feels weaker than he has in a long time.

“I saw her die,” he says, barely audible around the struggle in his throat. His chest. His mind.

Suddenly, an image flashes in his head of the dream he had weeks before, Sanja lying on the pavement, blood pooling large and limbs contorted. Worse, everyone around her had just stared, afraid of believing what they just saw. She had died alone on the pavement, her friends and her family—god, her _parents_ —none the wiser. A sob rises in Jeno’s throat as he shoots his eyes open, wanting to erase it.

He’s had so many dreams wherein unnamed people died, or unnamed people were stabbed, mugged, raped. It had haunted him nearly his whole life. The thought that _all_ of them may have been real, that he had done _nothing—_

“Jeno-ya!” Doyoung says. His hand hovers over Jeno’s face, reluctant to risk hurting him further. Jeno hasn’t heard him this worried in a long time.

A nurse walks in at that exact moment, and Jeno turns his face away immediately, pain shooting down his spine with it. He tries desperately to stop the tirade of thoughts, to stop the tears. It’s been years since he cried in front of anyone, even his brothers. He doesn’t want to break the streak with a mere stranger.

Jeno gasps as quietly as he can, desperate to halt. His brother, hand resting on his cheek, does his best to wipe away the tears as he does so.

The nurse is kind enough to give him a moment to collect himself.

“I’m sorry I took so long to reach you after you woke up,” the nurse says. His voice is soft but deep. Jeno still can’t bring himself to look at him.

“How do you feel? I can’t fully assess where you may be in pain when you’re unconscious.”

Jeno licks his lips and slowly turns to look at the nurse. He has such a kind look on his face, but it doesn’t make Jeno feel any more at ease. There’s something inside him now that feels—different. Broken.

“My head hurts,” Jeno says, speaking English for the first time since he woke up. He doesn’t divulge any more. He wants to curl up in his own bed and distract himself as soon as possible.

“His head hurts too,” Doyoung says quickly, also switching to English. “And his feet, at least.”

Jeno would wonder how Doyoung knew all of that, but he had stopped being unsurprised by how well his brother could read him a long time ago.

The nurse’s smile is a little knowing. “So, your neck—does it feel like sore muscles or something worse?”

“Maybe, uh—” Jeno’s a little afraid to admit to it feeling worse, lest they do more searching and _find_ something worse. But he can feel Doyoung’s eyes boring into him, and exhausted already from the injuries and the tears, Jeno just says, “Yeah, worse.”

“Hm,” the nurse says. As the questions continue and Jeno does his best to answer all of them, his eyelids droop more and more, until the nurse finally catches on to his lack of attentiveness and lets him fall asleep.

“Hyung,” Jeno says to his brother just after the nurse has left the room.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

He’s not sure who are what it’s for, but he feels it all the same.

“No,” Doyoung says. His voice is soft, regretful. “You did well.”

***

When Jeno wakes up again in the morning, he tries to ignore every thought that emerges about his dreams. He’s not all that successful alone, but the arrival of his eldest brother and his friends helps to distract.

Doyoung is asleep on the chair by the window, a pillow tucked haphazardly by Gongmyung between his shoulder and his head where it had been hanging uncomfortably before. The rest of his visitors are there, too, when he receives the news.

“You got nine stitches on the back of your head,” a new nurse says. Jeno had been informed this the night before. What he hadn’t been told earlier, though, was, “We had to shave a patch of hair off before that.”

“Hah!” Donghyuck says, sprawled out across the end of his bed where Jeno’s feet don’t reach. “Maybe you can finally get that undercut I’ve been pestering you to get.”

Jeno shakes his head minutely, amused, and pretends he doesn’t feel the pain it causes.

Quite suddenly, though, Donghyuck is horrified. “What if it doesn’t grow back?”

The nurse smiles, wry. “Undercuts for life.”

Donghyuck positively cackles, Mark begins laughing at the way Donghyuck is laughing, and Gongmyung can’t help but laugh at the two of them. Jeno, still, isn’t feeling up to being so lighthearted, but he feels fond.

The nurse leans in and tells him the scar won’t be large enough to affect the way his hair looks. Jeno tells her truthfully that he wouldn’t have minded either way.

A hairless spot on the back of his head is the least of his worries, now.

***

Hours later, when Mark and Donghyuck have both been firmly instructed to go to class, Doyoung is awake again and both of his brothers are sitting at his bedside. Gongmyung’s long, pink jacket is draped over Jeno’s legs for extra warmth.

“Jeno-ya,” Gongmyung says softly. He pauses, and for a second the look on his brothers’ faces are identical, worried and contemplative and maybe apprehensive.

Looking at them now, they really do resemble each other. Jeno has wished before that he could look like them, too, but he’s long realized that family isn’t only blood.

Gongmyung sighs. “Mark told us your dreams have been worse lately.”

Jeno can’t blame him.

But so much for the distractions.

“Yeah,” he admits reluctantly. Part of him is surprised he’s been sleeping so well here, but Jeno guesses there’s a difference between asleep and unconscious. He takes a deep breath.

It’s hard, contemplating whether to tell his brothers the truth or not. He knows they wouldn’t tell anyone, that they would do their best to support him—but the thing is, they’ve spent enough time worrying about Jeno since they took him in. He feels like—maybe he needs to take responsibility for his own problems, for once.

“You know—” Jeno’s voice breaks against his will, a barrier against the lie he’s about to tell. “You know how they get worse sometimes. It’ll be better soon, it always is.”

He tries, he _really_ tries, to put his heart into convincing his brother that this is all there is to the story. But Gongmyung simply looks at him for a moment. And another. Finally, though, relents.

“I’m here if you need help.” Gongmyung turns to look at Doyoung, who simply looks resigned. “We’re here.”

Jeno clears his throat. “I know.”

He looks away. His brothers have been there for most of his life, always dropping other things to make sure he’s okay. He doesn’t know how to put into words that he knows this so well it hurts, it eats him up inside.

“I know,” he repeats, softer.

***

He’s discharged from the hospital later that day. With Doyoung living 40 minutes away and Gongmyung several hours, it’s easiest for them to go back to Jeno’s shared apartment.

When he trudges through the front door he’s alone, his brothers still struggling to find parking. There’s a throbbing in his head that makes him just want to lie back down despite having done so for two days straight. He doesn’t have his glasses—he had taken them off in favor of settling his head comfortably against the passenger window—so he plops his very few things down on the counter in their mini kitchen before immediately making his way to—

There’s a stranger in his living room.

Vision problems aside, he can still tell that whoever this is is _not_ Donghyuck or Mark. His hair is darker than either of them have it dyed now, and he’s slighter in frame, and—

“You’re back!” Jeno hears Donghyuck say from behind him. Jeno finally fumbles for his glasses, slipping them on his face and blinking for a moment.

“Yeah,” Jeno says, and he sounds just as tired as he is. Donghyuck’s hand comes to rest on Jeno’s shoulder, a little more serious than he was even in the hospital. “I’m good, I just need to rest.”

Donghyuck squeezes his shoulder before retreating to where the other boy is sitting, across the table and in front of their small TV. The boy across from him, wavy-haired and wearing a yellow hoodie, leans his head against his hand, smushing his cheek a little bit. Something is stricken inside of Jeno, looking at him, but he’s not sure what it is.

“This is my partner for the computer science project,” Donghyuck says. The TV plays behind him—on the news again, for some reason—but it’s muted. The boy across from Donghyuck smiles tightly, and Jeno realizes he’s been staring for a second too long.

“Oh, hi. I’m Jeno.” Jeno clears his throat as the pain in his head seems to increase. “I live here.”

“I’m Renjun,” the boy says. “I don’t.”

A weak laugh escapes Jeno’s mouth. “Nice to meet you. I’m gonna—”

He’s interrupted by his brothers finally arriving.

“Jeno-ya,” Gongmyung says, spotting him still standing uncomfortably just outside the small hallway that leads to their separate rooms. “I have your pain meds, make sure to take some before—” he stops in his tracks, seeing the stranger sitting in their living room, papers scattered in front of him. He switches to English, rattling the paper bag in his hand. “Take these before you go to bed.”

Jeno nods. “Thanks,” he says, taking the bag. Doyoung passes him, disappearing into Jeno’s room with a couple of bags.

“Night,” Jeno says to the two sitting on the floor. They both return the sentiment as he retreats to the bathroom.

When he shuts the door behind him, Renjun and Donghyuck’s low chatter seems to completely disappear, his brothers’ soft bickering turning faint. He leans against the wall facing the mirror, immediately hunching forward when the back of his head just barely grazes the hard surface. The change in position, unfortunately, also sends a jolt of pain to the back of his head, shudders running down the rest of his body. He grits his teeth, eyes squeezed shut.

Finally looking up at himself is rough. It’s been a while since he’s looked this bad, with dark circles under his eyes, a sallowness to his skin that has him cringing. The depiction is unforgiving, baring everything he’s felt and seen the last few days.

He tears his eyes away, turning on the faucet. It hurts too much to bend down too far, so he rinses his face by bringing the water pooled in his hands up instead. It spills down his forearms and onto his shirt, splattering onto the counter.

In the darkness behind his closed eyes, Renjun’s face flickers in his head, but—it’s different. There’s a coldness there, a hardened expression that shutters and changes into one that’s running— _sprinting_ —which shutters and changes to a Renjun lying on the ground somewhere, arms splayed above him, peaceful, the floor cracking beneath him and swallowing—

There’s a sudden exclamation from the living room, and Jeno gasps, realizing he was holding his breath. The volume on the TV is suddenly unmuted, and Jeno can hear the muffled voices of the newscasters, echoing.

He presses a towel to his face, panting, then to his shirt, the counter, gently over his glasses.

_“…ongoing investigation into who caused the death of a forty-foot radius of plants on the south side of the U.N.Y. campus. Witnesses say there were only college-aged people at the scene when it happened, so the only lead the police has disclosed to the public is that the suspect is likely between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four.”_

There’s a pause, and the newscaster continues, _“The public is still unwilling to believe this was caused by a person rather than some unnatural phenomenon, but as the police are interviewing witnesses for information on a possible suspect, it seems likely that another super-powered human has emerged. With only six super-powered humans recorded with finality in history, this is cause for—"_

“My roommate was there when that happened,” Donghyuck says, louder than the TV.

Jeno doesn’t hear what Renjun says back.

“Oh, no—my other roommate,” Donghyuck replies. “He was—”

Jeno turns the faucet back on to brush his teeth and stops trying to listen. Does this—does this _thing_ make _him_ one of the few super-powered humans every recorded in history? They were so rare, the odds of this happening to _Jeno_ of all people were so low—that had to be a one-time thing.

Unbidden, the images of Renjun in his head imply otherwise.

People say you never clearly see the faces of people you’ve never met in your dreams. But that had been happening to Jeno his entire life.

He spits toothpaste into the sink, frustrated. The last thing he wants to think about is somehow ending up like the person on the news, hiding from the police because he revealed his abilities in public.

But hadn’t he—hadn’t he _already_ kind of revealed his abilities in public?

No. He shuts the water off, drying his face and his hands, before returning to his room.

“I set your meds right there with some water,” Doyoung says softly, pointing to his bedside table. “Get some rest. We’ll be here in the morning.”

Jeno nods, swallowing the pills and chasing them with water. While he’s eager to have the pain in his head dulled again, snuggling his face into his pillow suddenly feels like heaven, and he doesn’t stay awake long enough to find out whether it works.

***

He spends the next three days mostly in his apartment, his brothers keeping watch over his condition with help from his roommates. Mark is working more these days, so he’s not home as much as Donghyuck, who is stressed about his project with Renjun. Renjun seems to be at their apartment more than he is anywhere else.

The faster their deadline approaches, the more they bicker.

There’s a strangled scream in the living room. It’s not exactly sudden, as the arguing between Donghyuck and Renjun had been steadily rising in volume for several minutes, but Jeno and Doyoung still look up from where they’re eating their food at the small table in the kitchen.

“I thought you said you changed it!”

“I asked _you_ to change it!”

“ _When?_ You said it needed to be changed and then started typing on your computer, what was I _supposed_ to think?”

That stumps Donghyuck for a second before he says, “You were supposed to read my mind!”

The joke makes Renjun laugh for only a moment before he complains, “ _You’re_ the math major here, you should be good at this shit—”

“Just because I’m a STEM major doesn’t mean I’m automatically good at computer science—”

“Then why did you even take this class?”

“ _You’re_ one to talk, you major in _dance_ , what the fuck were you thinking taking this class?”

“I took this class by mistake!”

“How the hell do you take an entire class by mistake and _not drop out of it!_ ”

“It was too stressful, I just decided to stay!”

“And this _isn’t_ stressful?”

“I didn’t know it would be this hard! Stop complaining about me when you don’t know what you’re doing either!”

“It’s a _sophomore level STEM class_ and you’re a _dance major_ —"

“Guys,” Doyoung says, and that startles both of them enough to stop arguing entirely. They look over to Jeno and Doyoung, flustered. “I work in computer science. Maybe I could…help you?”

The glare Donghyuck shoots Doyoung is blistering. “You didn’t think to offer earlier.”

“You scare me,” Doyoung says flatly.

“You’ve been listening to us struggle for _three days_ ,” Donghyuck says, unphased.

“I’m offering _now_ , do you want my help or not?”

“Yes!” Renjun cuts in before Donghyuck can refuse out of stubbornness. “Please help.”

Jeno is only left alone at the table for a few minutes before Mark finally makes it home from work.

He immediately sits down across from Jeno, looking exhausted.

“How are you feeling?” Mark asks.

“How are _you_ feeling?” Jeno asks. “You’re so late.”

Mark sighs. “Man, the police are really out for this powered person’s neck.” He steals a bit from Jeno’s food. “They won’t believe _anyone_ when they say they didn’t see anything, but I think it’s the truth. Whoever it is, they’re good at hiding that kind of thing. Or they just got lucky.”

“Are you okay, though?” Jeno asks. He had recently been questioned briefly by the police about his own near-death car accident, but Jeno couldn’t tell them anything except the color and size of the truck who had almost hit them. Sanja, he heard, had been able to tell them even less than him. “Were they harsh?”

“A little,” Mark says. “You know how the government is about people with powers.”

Jeno does. It’s not good. Four of the six officially recorded people had been persecuted for having powers, as well as the majority of the ones who the public speculated on.

“You ready to go back to school tomorrow?” Mark asks.

Jeno is grateful for the change of subject. “No,” he says, and it’s kind of a lie. He’s been missing it just a little, and staying in his apartment to rest and heal is starting to get on his nerves.

“He misses Jaemin,” Donghyuck asserts out of nowhere from where he’s hunched over his laptop in the living room.

“Hyuck,” Jeno says sternly, trying to glare, but it comes out more like a whine.

“Who’s Jaemin?” Doyoung says, curious, and Renjun raises his eyebrows.

“Na Jaemin?” Renjun says, like he’s omniscient.

“You know him?”

“Yeah, he lives in my hall.”

“Who’s Jaemin?” Doyoung asks again, unfortunately at just the same time as Gongmyung walks back through the front door with grocery bags in hand.

“Jaemin?” Gongmyung says. “Who’s that?”

“Jeno has a crush on him,” Donghyuck says, smug.

“No I don’t!”

Mark snorts in front of him, failing in his resolve to keep out of it.

Gongmyung waggles his eyebrows at Jeno, amused.

Renjun taps his pencil on the table rhythmically. His stare seems to bore through Jeno, but he looks away when he notices Jeno is looking back.

Not for the first time since it happened, the images Jeno had seen of Renjun flash in his mind again. The fire, the cold, the peace—he wonders what is so different about Renjun that Jeno had seen him while awake, not asleep.

Gongmyung plops down next to him, stealing more of his food. “Tell us everything!”

Jeno groans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there you have it!
> 
> so this got kinda dark at a few points, and i don't really think it's gonna get much better for a while? on another note, though, i watched the dream concert last night and cried, so what's a few more tears
> 
> leave kudos or comments if u want!! ily


End file.
